Lubricated Goat
Encyclopedia
Lubricated Goat was an Australia
n noise rock
band of the 1980s.
They achieved brief notoriety for playing on a television program naked, wearing only their instruments and shoes. Mainly influenced by bands like The Stooges
and The Birthday Party
, they are credited for playing a grimy, confrontational style of rock which preceded grunge
.
to visit former Singing Dog drummer Brett Ford
who was then playing in The Kryptonics with Peter Hartley
.
While in Perth, Stu recorded side one of what later became the Plays The Devil’s Music EP at No Sweat Studios with Ford and Hartley. Side two was recorded in Adelaide
on a 4-track with drummer Martin Bland
(Bloodloss/Salamander Jim).
Lubricated Goat signed to Red Eye Records offshoot Black Eye Records. The band soon relocated to Sydney where Stu had previously met Guy Maddison
of the Greenhouse Effect (now in Mudhoney) in Perth, Maddison now living in Sydney was offered the opportunity to play bass for Lubricated Goat. The majority of the band lived on Cleveland Street in an old run-down three-story mansion which was soon dubbed "Gracelands." The house was a creative haven for musicians and artists that were known to host art shows and nude discos. These events were less common than they were reputed to be.
In 1988, Lubricated Goat released its debut full-length, Paddock Of Love, which featured the track "In The Raw". The band subsequently lip-synched a nude performance of the song on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV program Blah Blah Blah, an event which created national media outrage. A documentary film
has been made about the event, also titled In The Raw
, which explains how and why the band came to be nude in the first place.
Around this time there also was a line-up change, with Hartley sacked and Ford quit to be replaced by guitarist Sir Charles Tolnay Esquire of Grong Grong and King Snake Roost
and Gene Revet, drummer of The Space Juniors. In 1989, the new lineup recorded the EP Schadenfreude. Charlie and Gene did not tour the US, instead Stu and Guy were joined by Renastair EJ and Martin Bland for the first US tour.
Later after Guy's departure this line up recorded the full-length Psychedelicatessen" with Lachlan McLeod on bass.
Lubricated Goat had its back catalog re-released via Amphetamine Reptile Records
in the United States
, and on Normal
in Europe
, before making its first American tour in mid-1989. In 1990, Lubricated Goat commenced its first European tour, one that was plagued with tragedy via the stabbing of Spasm in Berlin
in 1990. The incident placed Lubricated Goat on hiatus.
, PCP, Sympathy for the Record Industry
and REPTILIAN. Spasm also played in Crunt
(which featured his then-wife Kat Bjelland
of Babes in Toyland
) and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
drummer Russell Simins.
In 2007, a brand new lineup of Lubricated Goat started writing new songs & performing them, along with a selection of classic LG songs. This lineup included Anne Mette Rasmussen on keyboards, sound effects & backup vocals, Creighton Chamberlain (formerly of Heroine Sheiks
) on bass, and 'Bloody' Rich Hutchins (former/current member of Live Skull
, Of Cabbages and Kings
, Sugartime, Phideaux, Hungry March Band
) on drums.
in 2009, the lineup changed again, replacing Creighton Chamberlain with Jack Natz, who played bass in Lubricated Goat off and on in late 90's through the mid 00's. Anne Mette Rasmussen left to form her own band LoveStruck, which also features both Stu Spasm and Rich Hutchins. This new Lubricated Goat lineup is currently writing and recording new material.
"Waste Sausage LP" (Black Eye Records 1) 80s Australian only release
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
band of the 1980s.
They achieved brief notoriety for playing on a television program naked, wearing only their instruments and shoes. Mainly influenced by bands like The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
and The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party (band)
The Birthday Party were an Australian rock band, active from 1973 to 1983.Despite being championed by John Peel, The Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career...
, they are credited for playing a grimy, confrontational style of rock which preceded grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
.
History
Lubricated Goat was formed by Sydney musician Stu Spasm (real name Stuart Grey). While returning from a visit to England, Spasm went to PerthPerth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
to visit former Singing Dog drummer Brett Ford
Brett Ford
Brett Ford was a drummer and songwriter best known for his stint in Australian rock group Lubricated Goat. Throughout the 1980s, Ford played drums in a number of prominent Australian rock bands, including The Kryptonics and X...
who was then playing in The Kryptonics with Peter Hartley
Peter Hartley
Peter John Hartley is an English first-class cricketer and umpire.Hartley made his debut for Warwickshire in 1982. He moved to Yorkshire in 1985, and stayed there until 1997, when he relocated to Hampshire...
.
While in Perth, Stu recorded side one of what later became the Plays The Devil’s Music EP at No Sweat Studios with Ford and Hartley. Side two was recorded in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
on a 4-track with drummer Martin Bland
Martin Bland
John Martin Bland , known as Martin Bland, is a British statistician. He has been professor of health statistics at the University of York since 2003...
(Bloodloss/Salamander Jim).
Lubricated Goat signed to Red Eye Records offshoot Black Eye Records. The band soon relocated to Sydney where Stu had previously met Guy Maddison
Guy Maddison
Guy Maddison is primarily known as a bassist associated with punk and grunge music. He is arguably best known as the current bassist of the grunge band Mudhoney.-1980s:...
of the Greenhouse Effect (now in Mudhoney) in Perth, Maddison now living in Sydney was offered the opportunity to play bass for Lubricated Goat. The majority of the band lived on Cleveland Street in an old run-down three-story mansion which was soon dubbed "Gracelands." The house was a creative haven for musicians and artists that were known to host art shows and nude discos. These events were less common than they were reputed to be.
In 1988, Lubricated Goat released its debut full-length, Paddock Of Love, which featured the track "In The Raw". The band subsequently lip-synched a nude performance of the song on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
TV program Blah Blah Blah, an event which created national media outrage. A documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
has been made about the event, also titled In The Raw
In the Raw (documentary)
In The Raw is a 2009 documentary film about Lubricated Goat's nude appearance on Australian TV.In November 1988, Andrew Denton's Blah Blah Blah program caused a nationwide stir by allowing guitar group Lubricated Goat to perform on Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV completely naked...
, which explains how and why the band came to be nude in the first place.
Around this time there also was a line-up change, with Hartley sacked and Ford quit to be replaced by guitarist Sir Charles Tolnay Esquire of Grong Grong and King Snake Roost
King Snake Roost
King Snake Roost were one of a number of Australian and International guitar-based bands who emerged from within the punk rock and post-punk scene of the mid 1980s that came to be defined as noise rock. King Snake Roost formed in 1985 in Adelaide and in 1987 the band moved to Sydney. The band...
and Gene Revet, drummer of The Space Juniors. In 1989, the new lineup recorded the EP Schadenfreude. Charlie and Gene did not tour the US, instead Stu and Guy were joined by Renastair EJ and Martin Bland for the first US tour.
Later after Guy's departure this line up recorded the full-length Psychedelicatessen" with Lachlan McLeod on bass.
Lubricated Goat had its back catalog re-released via Amphetamine Reptile Records
Amphetamine Reptile Records
Amphetamine Reptile Records is a nationally renowned record label which was founded in 1986 by then-US Marine Tom Hazelmyer in Washington State, US The label is best-known for its roster of noise rock artists, and its Dope, Guns 'n' Fucking In The Streets series of compilations.-History:Hazelmyer...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and on Normal
Normal
Normal may refer to:* Normality , conformance to an average* Norm , social norms, expected patterns of behavior studied within the context of sociology* Normal distribution , the Gaussian continuous probability distribution...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, before making its first American tour in mid-1989. In 1990, Lubricated Goat commenced its first European tour, one that was plagued with tragedy via the stabbing of Spasm in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1990. The incident placed Lubricated Goat on hiatus.
Post-1980s
Various incarnations of Lubricated Goat, often featuring only Stu Spasm, have since existed, recording material for Sub PopSub Pop
Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...
, PCP, Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry is a mainly independent garage rock and punk label formed in 1988 by record industry anti-mogul Long Gone John...
and REPTILIAN. Spasm also played in Crunt
Crunt
Crunt was an alternative rock band, active from 1993 to 1995. Formed when all three members were living in Seattle, the band included Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland and Stuart Gray, who were married during the band's career....
(which featured his then-wife Kat Bjelland
Kat Bjelland
Katherine "Kat" Bjelland is an American musician who is currently the lead singer-guitarist of the band Katastrophy Wife, and is the former lead singer and guitarist of the punk rock band Babes in Toyland....
of Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (band)
Babes in Toyland was an American alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. The band was formed by Oregon native Kat Bjelland , with Lori Barbero and Michelle Leon , who was later replaced by Maureen Herman in 1992...
) and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are an American alternative rock trio, formed in 1991 and based out of New York City, New York. The band consists of Judah Bauer on guitar, backing vocals, harmonica and occasional lead vocals, Russell Simins on drums and Jon Spencer on vocals, guitar and theremin...
drummer Russell Simins.
In 2007, a brand new lineup of Lubricated Goat started writing new songs & performing them, along with a selection of classic LG songs. This lineup included Anne Mette Rasmussen on keyboards, sound effects & backup vocals, Creighton Chamberlain (formerly of Heroine Sheiks
Heroine Sheiks
The Heroine Sheiks were originally a New York-based Noise Rock band until early 2006, when the band called it quits. In 2008 the band was reformed in Minneapolis, and then only lasting another year. It began in 1999 as a collaboration of Shannon Selberg, George Porfiris, Norman Westberg and John Fell...
) on bass, and 'Bloody' Rich Hutchins (former/current member of Live Skull
Live Skull
-Overview:Live Skull created abrasive no wave music not unlike their 1980s contemporaries Sonic Youth, Swans, Rat at Rat R, The Chameleons, Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Band of Susans. Their music featured angular guitar parts interspersed with bleak, quieter passages, for a haunting...
, Of Cabbages and Kings
Of Cabbages and Kings
Of Cabbages and Kings is an American Noise rock band from Chicago, Illinois. Its name is a quote from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.-Band history:...
, Sugartime, Phideaux, Hungry March Band
Hungry March Band
The Hungry March Band is a brass band with approximately 15 active musicians and performers. In performance, the group's size can vary from five to fifty: from an intimate quintet to a giant entourage of musicians, dancers, baton twirlers, hula hoopers, and second-liners...
) on drums.
in 2009, the lineup changed again, replacing Creighton Chamberlain with Jack Natz, who played bass in Lubricated Goat off and on in late 90's through the mid 00's. Anne Mette Rasmussen left to form her own band LoveStruck, which also features both Stu Spasm and Rich Hutchins. This new Lubricated Goat lineup is currently writing and recording new material.
Albums
- Paddock of LovePaddock of Love-Personnel:Lubricated Goat*Brett Ford – drums, harmonica, vocals*Pete Hartley – guitar, vocals*Guy Maddison – bass guitar, vocals*Stu Spasm – vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer, productionAdditional musicians and production...
(Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.]/ Normal [Europe], 1988) - PsychedelicatessenPsychedelicatessen (Lubricated Goat album)-Personnel:Lubricated Goat*Martin Bland – drums, synthesizer*Renastair E. J. – guitar, saxophone*Lachlan McCleod – sampler*Stu Spasm – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, synthesizerAdditional musicians and production...
(Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.], 1989) - Forces You Don't UnderstandForces You Don't Understand-Personnel:Lubricated Goat*Tony Lee – bass guitar*Vincent Signorelli – drums*Stuart Gray – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, sampler, synthesizer, tympani, productionAdditional musicians and production*Tod Ashley – sampler...
(1994, PCP)
EPs
- Plays the Devil’s MusicPlays the Devil’s Music-Personnel:*Martin Bland – drums, production, vocals*Brett Ford – drums, vocals*Pete Hartley – bass guitar, guitar, vocals*Stu Spasm – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, synthesizer, production...
(Black Eye/ Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.], 1987) - SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude (album)-Personnel:Lubricated Goat*Guy Maddison – bass guitar*Gene Ravet – drums*Stu Spasm – vocals, guitar, production*Charles Tolnay – guitarAdditional musicians and production*Dave Boyne – production*John Foy – front cover design...
12" (Black Eye, 1989)
7" singles
- "Meating My Head" (Sub Pop, 1989) (part of Sub Pop Singles Club, on yellow vinyl)
- "Bad Times" on Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volume Four (double 7") (Amphetamine Reptile, 199_) (4-way split with L. Goat, Boss Hog, Thee Mighty Caesars, Vertigo) (later appeared on the Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volumes 4-7 CD, on AmRep)
- "Shut Your Mind" (Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1992) (U.K.; on yellow vinyl)
- "Play Dead" (Sub Pop, 1993) (on red vinyl)
Compilation album
- The Great Old Ones (Reptilian, 2003 or 2004) (all re-recorded versions w/ new lineup)
"Waste Sausage LP" (Black Eye Records 1) 80s Australian only release